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Sunday, September 30, 2012

Wonderland Trail Circumnavigation: This is what you look like after 31 hours of non-stop running/hiking--a bit dirty, hot, and crazed. See that sparkle in my eye though? I did it!!

Monday, September 17-Sunday September 23: Honestly, recapping this week was something I was NOT going to do. In reflection though, not recapping this week would be a shame. Surely this was one of the most intense, joyful, and traumatic weeks of my life up until now. I'd rather it just be a normal kind of week. Instead, the universe had other life changing ideas. I ran the Wonderland Trail around Mt. Rainier in 31hr11min to set a new women's fastest known time. I ran the route solo and unsupported. This run was a pivotal moment in my life, allowing me to recognize my independence, personal strength, and power. It also brought out my fears and I had no choice but to face them, or fail to finish the route. Thanks to the lessons and strength that I gained from this run, my supportive and loving friends, and my children I am sitting here writing this journal. Otherwise I think I would have given up on myself as well.

On the traumatic end of the week, my partner of 2 years, business partner, running partner, lover, and best friend broke up with me this same week, after the Wonderland run. I was & am devastated. Running has always been a pleasure, but with the memories of running with him and the self reflective nature of running, it has been difficult since. I share this very intimate information with you, my reader, because writing brings me pleasure and my blog is my solace. I try to convey in a deep and honest way my experience through my writing. Anything less would rob you of the pleasure that honest, reflective writing brings. I know this is a long recap of the week, but it's been a long week!

I'm an adventurer first and foremost. I am an avid trail runner, student of yoga and crazy for slack lining. I race 100 mile ultra marathons. I like to see the world upside down and I hope my blog helps you see it that way too! Welcome! I love hearing from you.

Friday, September 28, 2012

When you run for a long time by yourself you have a lot of time to experience your state of being. I ran around Mt. Hood this week. 40 miles solo, 10,000 feet of climbing. Just 7 days after Wonderland FKT. I wore down my body and exposed my emotions. My emotions and my state of being became my environment. I experience in the external world my internal environment. Fears turn into Mountain Lions and Bears and nightfall. And yet...Joy is the mountain with a sunset like a blush making my cheeks pink. Peace is the first glimpse of Mt. Hood above an alpine meadow with glaciers carving its side.

Sunset on Mt. Hood

Seeing the Mt. Hood around mile 3 on my run flooded me with gratitude, such a feeling! I felt joy and excitement for the trail. Those feelings were short lived and my run began to feel like the suffering I have been experiencing in my personal life. I just wanted it to be done. My brain was a CD that had been scratched and kept catching on a song line then jumping to another, but jumbling everything into an incoherent mess. I just wanted to skip the track. And then the next track was scratched too. There was no escaping the damage.

I just don't understand how my world can go so quickly from color to black and white, from meaning to meaninglessness. From richness to blandness. I can't taste food. It all is the same. I feel my loss deeply and intensely. It's a loss for what could be and for what I had worked so hard for and put so much into. I don't understand how someone can give up on you? How can they leave you so alone? I feel as though I am those mountains I am circumnavigating, covered in glaciers, cutting into my flesh. But the glaciers turn into streams and feed the alpine meadows. The meadows grow and feed the animals and insects. The streams hydrate us as the glaciers slowly melt.

While in Portland, I had my poison dripping dream. Dreams are also metaphors for our lives, much like our everyday experiences. We can learn a lot about what we are creating in our lives by our running experiences and by our dreams. In my dream I was in a building with light fixtures that had been covered in poison. When the lights were turned on, the poison began dripping onto the people in the building, including myself. I had known that someone had put poison on the lights, yet I did nothing. But there I was with the lights on, getting dripped on by poison. The poison would create hallucinations and eventually kill me, so if I washed my skin, I might have a fighting chance. And there were children, babies in the room. I was trying to wash their skin and my own. Yet, I didn't leave the building. Then I woke up.

More than ever, I want to feel our interconnectedness. Yours and mine, my dear reader. I am an extension of you, playing on the mountains, drinking from the stream, crying as the clouds do so that the wild blueberries can grow, and finding joy in the mountains that blush with a morning sunrise. Join me.

I'm an adventurer first and foremost. I am an avid trail runner, student of yoga and crazy for slack lining. I race 100 mile ultra marathons. I like to see the world upside down and I hope my blog helps you see it that way too! Welcome! I love hearing from you.

Sunday, September 23, 2012

At the time I thought that staring at a mountain lion was the most terrifying experience of my life. Actually, there are things that are far more terrifying that you have absolutely no control over. That is a story for another day, but my weekend has put my Wonderland Trail in perspective. And now I am ready to tell about part II.

Part II: Candice in Wonderland

I began running a little before 7am Wednesday morning. My legs felt good I took a picture at the start of the trail and immediately saw what looked like a runner headed up the trail toward me. What are the chances?! The man's name was Glen and he was off to run the entire Wonderland Trail as well. His wife was meeting him at a few key spots and he quickly encouraged me to pass him if I wanted, he was taking his time. I was still putting on and taking off layers and adjusting my stuff, so after about 10 minutes I caught up to him, after a few more questions, I he told me that he had never run more than 20 miles. I was FLOORED. Here I was running the Wonderland trail and I had actually found another runner crazier than myself. I wasn't sure if I should be super impressed or really worried about the man. He was holding a slower pace than myself, so I bid him good luck and crested the first hill. I didn't see him again the rest of the way, and I have a feeling that he may not have finished, but that is only based on how tough the trail was. Definitely not a good idea for someone who has never run an ultra.

The first 50k was insane. Insane amounts of climbing. I kept glancing at my watch thinking, "6,500 feet of climbing in the first 20 miles?!" and "12,000 feet of climbing in the first 50k?!" and on. It was up, up, up. I figured if I ran 9 hour 50k's I had a chance to beat the overall unsupported FKT (fastest known time) for the Wonderland Trail. It definitely felt possible and it was exciting to play with the clock. John Reese had just set a new record for men's fkt at 28:50. That was the time to beat. I came through 50k at 9 hours 5 min. Almost right on the dot. I was feeling good and moving well. I saw Glen's family waiting to crew him at Mowich Lake and gave them a report, saw him at the start, haven't seen him since. The trail is really tough. They were rather shocked to hear that I did not have a crew.

Me to his wife: I'm sure your husband is very thankful for your support. Her: You don't have a cache somewhere? Me: no. Her: Can I make you a sandwich? Me: I wish!! Thank you, but I am doing the run completely unsupported.

Just 10 miles earlier I had passed two hikers who asked how far I was running. After telling them the entire loop, one of the pair asked incredulously, do you have cache? Me: (a little worried) Cash? What are you talking about? I actually thought for a moment that they might try to rob me! The man clarified his statement and I relaxed, "oh, ha, no cache".

I ran into trouble at Carbon River. The trail follows the river for several miles then takes a detour over the river and along the opposite side, adding an extra 1/2 mile. I looked at my map. The detour was not on the Wonderland Trail. Did that mean that I needed to take the old trail? A sign stated Danger, that the trail was closed due to rock falls. I've been on a fair number of trails and I calculated that it was likely that the trail was still passable, so I scooted past the detour sign, taking note that the trail was beginning to look overgrown. It may have been closed for years. I brushed the last thought away.

Almost immediately I was lowering myself down the cliff side and through a rock/dirt slide that had taken out the trail. I climbed back up on the other side and thought maybe that was as bad as it gets. As it turns out, it was worse. About a 1/2 mile down the trail, a slide had destroyed the entire trail and there was no trail on the other side to climb over to. Damn. Damn. Damn. I just spent 15 minutes on a dead end trail. I quickly considered climbing overland and scouting out the trail farther up or skiing down the slope to the river and looking for the trail upland. I had alread lost a 1/2 hour and I realized that it was better to back track and take the detour than waste more time on a trail that might not be there.

I had lost valuable time, but my time goals were still within sight. I ran/hiked through the next few miles and was amazed at the sight of the Carbon glacier wedged between Mt. Rainier and the surrounding hillsides. The glacier was burrowing into the ground like a rodent, covered in dirt with the Carbon river rushing out from under it. The trail kept heading uphill past the glacier and into the woods. Sun was setting and as the sky darkened my fear grew. I was all alone. Turning on my headlamps brought some relief (yep, brought 2 so that I could run faster and have an extra just in case). The only way out, as they say, was through--- in my case, the night.

I got lost for a good 10 minutes in a campground at the top of the climb, but with the help of some campers I was heading back down the trail. The miles rolled on, me looking out into the night for shining eyes, and putting one foot in front of the other. Finding the trail was a lot harder to follow at night, but only at river crossings and camp grounds. Most intersections were very well marked.

By mile 50, I had climbed over 17,000 feet. That's more than a 50 mile split at Hardrock. No wonder I was starting to drag... On my way down to White River, my watch warned me that it was getting a low battery. I had brought an extra GPS watch with me, so I turned it on and waited for it to reach the satellites. When it registered (finally, after 15 minutes) I turned on watch #2 and turned off watch #1. It was mile 57.

I got totally turned around at White River. There's a campground and I couldn't find the Wonderland Trail leaving the campground. I searched the area and found the trail down the road a bit. This next section from White River to Summerland to Indian Tie, proved to be the most intense section of the entire run. I was making good time running one of the few flat sections from White River. About 4 miles up the trail, huge glowing eyes stopped me in my tracks. I was jolted in terror, and froze in place. I wasn't alone. Was it a mountain lion? The animal turned its head and I caught a glimpse of a large snout and then it turned a little and the sound of it moving through the woods was big. Too big for a mountain lion. It was a black bear. I backed up the trail slowly, looking for a stick to make myself bigger.

I wasn't really thinking clearly. I was still afraid that the huge animal might be a mountain lion. Or that it might follow me up the trail. I carried a large stick up the trail, finding some amusement in carrying so much extra weight. Now I was really looking around me into the woods. My bad.... only a 1/2 hour later I saw more glowing eyes. This was definitely a mountain lion though. Another jolt of adrenaline. This time, I began yelling like a crazy woman. I figured I would do my best to scare it away. It stared at me for a few slow seconds and it slowly turned. I saw the ripple of its shoulders as it slunk off. I was still holding a big stick to look bigger, and I grabbed another stick to hit rocks with (to make more noise). I had to pass by the spot the mountain lion was to keep going up the trail. One foot in front of the other. I kept making loud noises all the way up the trail. For miles I challenged the mt. lion with my voice. I think this was part of the reason that I was so exhausted on day two.

A little farther down the trail, I reached the glacier sections. The glacier crossings were one of the more challenging spots to find the trail. Especially this one area where the trail appeared to go downhill (lots of footprints) but then petered out a little way down the hill. I walked all around the area trying to find the trail. After 15 minutes of searching, I determined I was lost. It was at this time that the stress of the last part of the trail came flooding out. I collapsed and cried. I cried because I was scared. I cried because I had survived. I cried because I had to slow down and I cried because my personal life was a damn mess. At worst, I determined that I would have to wait until daylight to find the trail. Which was about 1 hour away. This was just the beginning of an emotional roller coaster that would be the last 40 miles of the route.

Stand up! I forced myself up and decided to search within the area I knew I had lost the trail. But not far enough to get lost. Up and down the snow bank and still nothing. Then I saw some foot prints headed up the bank. Straight up. I had nothing to lose, so I followed them, my excitement growing. They abruptly swich backed. And ended at a cliff of snow. Disappointment flooded me. I searched above me to see footprints or a route. Trouble was, I didn't know what direction the trail was supposed to go, so off trailing it could get me even more hopelessly lost. Dejectedly I headed back down the steep route, back tracked to the trail then to my astonishment I saw a trail in the snow up the bank and to the right.

I had found the route. It returned to the rocky terrain and I spotted rock cairns. The trail weaved through more glaciers and rocky trail until I crested a rocky cliff and began running, blissfully, down the other side of the mountain. My emotions were shifting faster than my breathing. I could see a little light on the horizon and I was hopeful that I would in fact survive the night.

My last bear encounter was on a steep downhill of lush alpine meadows. I was still jumpy as hell and watching my back by shining my light around behind me. I heard a noise to my back and right. Shifting quickly onto my right foot, I found myself staring down a sleepy bear. My reaction was to shreak like I had at the mountain lion, and the bear huffed at me in anger. How DARE I wake him shining a bright light in his face?! I immediately toned it down and backed down the trail s-l-o-w-l-y. My voice was lowered and I talked to the bear. I reasoned that the siren noise I had used on the mt. lion was more irritating than helpful for the bear. I decided to sing about the bear that went over the mountain and apparently the actual bear wasn't interested in an encore. As soon as I was around a few corners I split.

The night shadows were being brushed away by a red glowing sunset and I could see Mt. Rainier in its full glory. The side of Rainier that is on postcards. 'Cause there's a side of the mountain that isn't quite as photogenic ladies and gentlemen. Daylight roused some elk(?) from their slumber and a sound like I have never heard, a combination of whispering, whistling, and alien ship noises overtook the hillsides. The beauty was overwhelming and yet, I was overwhelmed by the sheer magnitufde of run I sill had left. 20 freaking miles. For the second time, I sat down put my head in my hands and sobbed under the sunrise and the most incredible view of Mt. Rainier I may ever experience. My despair was as real as the beauty of the surroundings. Still, my only choice was to continue on. I began running up the hills to the surreal elk song. The hills kept coming and when I thought I would never see another downhill again, the trail began to descend.

This was about the time that I began to develop hot spots on the balls of my feet. They turned into blisters but I kept running. For the second time, I was out of water. This time, I didn't care. I was sure that I was so slow that I would be ashamed to even post my finishing time. Then, I was at Box Canyon, confused, trying to understand why the sign said I had 12 miles, not 15. (or something like that anyway). My eyes had been fooling me with halluciations in the trees and trail. I had been embracing the visions, creating a magical world on the trail, but I hoped this was a real vision.

As it turned out, it was. My Garmin watches had lost reception from time to time and over the course of 90 some miles, I was farther along than I thought. Box Canyon spit me out onto a trail along the river and my visions continued. People emerged from dried out stumps, frogs came alive from fallen leaves. Wonderland indeed. The stream on my right seemed like a questionable water source, but... I had neglected my hydration so I reluctanly downed a few water bottles. As I returned to my painfully slow jog/hike I began to feel a deep overwhelming fatigue. I calculated that I had 10 miles left. Crushed, I sank down again in despair with the intention that I would sleep right there on the trail, but visions of hikers finding my broken down, exhausted body propelled me on. I quickly decided that my best bet would be ipod on high (Kesha was just the right mix of angry & loud), running instead of walking, popped a caffeine pill (my 3rd or 4th that day), and sucked down a gel. Damn that was disguisting. Like too sweet strawberry jelly. Ugh.

It worked enough for me to reject my napping idea. I hiked up, ran across and down the bank of the river for endless miles. They seemed to drag on with flies landing on me and the sun settled on me like I was standing still. I began to worry about heat exhaustion, but my focus was growing. I was actually getting closer. Eventually I saw the sweet, sweet road and crossed . I dejectedly saw that I still had 7.5 miles. Fuck.

Keep moving. My body was not happy, but my mind was floating a bit in the trees above and the visions were getting good. If it weren't for my broken body, I could've had some fun. The trail entered the road, some construction, and I was a blissful 5.5 miles from being DONE. I began to run with a zombie like gait and focus. Walking lowered the intensity of pain on my blisters, but slowed my pace considerably. So running like a monster it was. I saw a hiker enjoying the woods on a big rock. Was he real? He said something about the trail, I spouted something back in agreement and kept rambling, fumbling toward Longmire. My excitement grew and roared like the river. I crossed the final river and was 2(!!) miles to Longmire. I would run the entire thing no matter what.

In the last 1/2 mile I amazingly saw two guys who I had seen in the first 20 miles of my journey. My god, it's you, they said. Oh! Hi! and I was off. No time to talk. I was going to cruise into Longmire in a blazing 9 minute mile (ha!). The museum and buildings of the park appeared and I was lost again. Where had I started? I pulled out the map and tried to figure it out. I realized I'd parked in the overflow around the bend of the road. Backtracking a 1/2 mile and I was back at my car. I jogged to the Wonderland Trail sign, and kissed the ground like a pilot out of a storm and cried for the joy of it all. Some hikers paused and looked away quickly. I felt so blessed to have the strength to finish. All my thoughts of never doing another crazy adventure vanished.

I'm an adventurer first and foremost. I am an avid trail runner, student of yoga and crazy for slack lining. I race 100 mile ultra marathons. I like to see the world upside down and I hope my blog helps you see it that way too! Welcome! I love hearing from you.

Saturday, September 22, 2012

I began writing this post about the Wonderland Trail run that I did and I cannot finish it just now. I am posting the Garmin and SPOT data that shows my finishing time and some other pertinent info. I will try to finish the whole story another time, but for now, I don't have the energy.

On my way out to run the trail, early Wednesday morning

First Wonderland sign

Here is the basic info about my run: I started at Longmire, running clockwise on 9/19/12 and finished at 9/20/12 in Longmire. I ran solo and unsupported, meaning I ran by myself and carried all my own gear and food and filled up my water in the streams. My finishing time was 31hr 11min and 57sec. I saw 2 bears, 2 cougars, several porcupines, elk and lots of other animals along the way. It was both exciting and terrifying to run the 93 mile route by myself all day and through the night. I have never gotten so tired in the last 10 miles of a run, and I almost took a nap. I was also hallucinating like crazy on day 2.

Garmin data from 1st watch:
Garmin data from 2nd watch:
Spot GPS data: can be found HEREWonderland Trail Run Report: Part I
Some of the best experiences of my life begin with a sudden, yet seamless knowing. It is as though I turn a page and a whole new story of what I am going to do that day or week becomes as clear as a mountain stream. If you'd asked me what my running plans were after Plain 100, I would have said that I was beginning some more intensive marathon training after a short rest/cross training week. Sometime around last week, I began to get very curious about this Wonderland Trail people were talking about. A friend of mine had just completed a double circumnavigation of the trail, a whopping 186 miles in 89hours. Out of curiosity I checked the Fastest Known Times website and discovered that there weren't any women's times for the 93 mile route. Clearly that needed to be changed.

When I thought about the 93 mile route, I realized that my training had built up perfectly to do the run, and to probably do it in a reasonably fast amount of time. I loosely planned out the next 5 days, and determined that I had enough time to run the route. In anticipation for the journey I purchased a SPOT GPS tracker in part because I would be running solo and in part to document my journey. In addition to having my own Garmin GPS watch, I borrowed James' Garmin watch so that I would be able to track the entire run. I packed my bags, made the back of my car into a bed and left late Tuesday evening to camp out at the trailhead and get an early start running the trail Wednesday morning.

Part of the excitement of doing the route was doing it solo and unsupported. It isn't actually that easy to find someone who will run with you on a few days notice for 93 miles, so it also simplified things for me to do the run by myself. I packed mostly gels, candy bars, string cheese, and some granola bars as food for the trip. i think I had about 7,000 calories, which ended up being about 1/3 more than I needed. I also wished that I had brought more real food, like a sandwich.
More pictures from the journey:

I'm an adventurer first and foremost. I am an avid trail runner, student of yoga and crazy for slack lining. I race 100 mile ultra marathons. I like to see the world upside down and I hope my blog helps you see it that way too! Welcome! I love hearing from you.

Sunday, September 16, 2012

Monday September 10- Sunday September 16, 2012: Ok, super...no, SUPER stressful week with work and personal life. This week is a recovery week after a hard effort at Plain100 and many weeks of intense training before that. In other words, it looks pretty pathetic to me, but it is essential to my mental and physical well being!

I'm an adventurer first and foremost. I am an avid trail runner, student of yoga and crazy for slack lining. I race 100 mile ultra marathons. I like to see the world upside down and I hope my blog helps you see it that way too! Welcome! I love hearing from you.

Let's just say it's been a really tough week/weekend and leave it at that. I was able to squeeze in an incredible run at Mount Baker. I ran most of the 12 miles, but felt low energy considering how tapered I should feel after an easy week. Something is seriously sapping my energy. Nonetheless, the beauty of the mountains and the simplicity of one foot in front of the other and sweaty running jerseys prevailed, at least for a few precious hours on Saturday.

I'm an adventurer first and foremost. I am an avid trail runner, student of yoga and crazy for slack lining. I race 100 mile ultra marathons. I like to see the world upside down and I hope my blog helps you see it that way too! Welcome! I love hearing from you.

Wednesday, September 12, 2012

Me running the first half of the Plain 100 course in August with Dan Probst. Picture courtesy Dan Probst.

My race reminds me of those Facebook word pictures that are all the rage. In my case, I am the non-runner in the one that reads something like, "Quitting is for weak, stupid, idiots who do not really love running and cannot be called Runners" with a transparent picture of what looks like a car accident victim crawling toward the finish line.

I actually did quit when I could have kept running (or death marching I should say). It goes completely against the 100 mile commandments to stop because you don't want to death march, but I did it. I ran the best 100k I could on race day and left it at that. I was in 6th place overall (2nd woman) and could've left Deep Creek in 4th place overall as some of my competitors were still at Deep Creek. And as it later turns out, 1st place dropped out not long after that, which would've put me in 3rd. I did the calculations in my head the last 10 miles of my 100k and figured I could run a 29 hour race (a very good finishing time at Plain), even with massive death marching in the last loop. But it wasn't worth it to me. I was not enjoying the race, and more importantly my legs were flat.

That flat feeling came on strong around mile 11. I cruised through the first 9 miles, running up hills and feeling good enough to hold 4th/5th place overall. When I got to the steeper section of trail around mile 11, I felt a deep fatigue in my legs. I bent over and paused my climbing. My legs were very tired feeling. I have felt that before. In my first 100 mile race, Cascade Crest, I had nothing for the climbs. That motivated me to work hard this past year on hills specifically. Yet, apparently you can still be left feeling flat on race day. I knew what was possible from having run the Tahoe Rim 100 in July. I knew I could feel good almost the enitre race, running most of the course.

But on race day this past weekend, with a deep feeling fatigue, I did my best to keep on my 26 hour pace. I maintained that pace until the monstrous 2nd climb up Signal Peak (mile 35.5). Signal Peak is 5.7 miles with 5,000 feet of climbing. It is the biggest, baddest climb I have ever done in a race. It put me almost an hour behind on my splits.

My ultimate decision to drop at Deep Creek was made because I did not want to walk huge portions of the 2nd half of the race. My legs were very tired already and I knew that if I dropped, I would be able to resume my training sooner without putting more stress on my body. Did I make the right decision? Yes. I had no other choice to make at at Deep Creek because my head was no longer in the race. Yet.... as my body heals, I feel disappointment that I did not push on. For, pushing on is what finishing a 100 miler is all about.

I'm an adventurer first and foremost. I am an avid trail runner, student of yoga and crazy for slack lining. I race 100 mile ultra marathons. I like to see the world upside down and I hope my blog helps you see it that way too! Welcome! I love hearing from you.

Monday, September 10, 2012

Monday, September 3 to Sunday, September 9: Race week. Ran the Plain 100 on Saturday. Dropped at mile 62 due to an unusual, deep feeling fatigue in my legs. Felt the fatigue very early on, just hoped that it would go away. Averaged 12:53 (moving speed) and 14:35 (average speed) during the loop on a highly technical, rutted out and very sandy course with 14,800 feet of vertical. Pretty happy with those stats but disappointed that I was did not have any power in my legs. More to come on the details of the race.

I'm an adventurer first and foremost. I am an avid trail runner, student of yoga and crazy for slack lining. I race 100 mile ultra marathons. I like to see the world upside down and I hope my blog helps you see it that way too! Welcome! I love hearing from you.

Tuesday, September 4, 2012

In the dream I was running a marathon carrying a printer. The printer was in one of the large bins that James and I use for race directing. I was running fast, and about 10 miles in I realized I needed to leave the printer somewhere safe so that it wouldn't get stolen in order to run faster and be free of it. The rest of the dream centered on the conflicts that came about from trying to unload the printer and I eventually decided to quit the marathon. I would run one later when I had a safe place for the printer.

I'm an adventurer first and foremost. I am an avid trail runner, student of yoga and crazy for slack lining. I race 100 mile ultra marathons. I like to see the world upside down and I hope my blog helps you see it that way too! Welcome! I love hearing from you.

Monday, September 3, 2012

Monday, August 27- Sunday, September 2: More tapering. Man, this tapering is getting tiring. I actually did a little more mileage than I'd planned to do this week because James and I were in Tahoe guiding the Tahoe Rim Running Tour. It's such a beautiful place and I couldn't control myself. I never got sore or felt tired from the runs, even though I had a 19 mile day and a 24 mile day, one right after the other.

Hilary, me, British Steve, Steve, ans Gene. All road marathoners and very strong on the trails.

I'm also beginning to recognize a pattern in the taper weeks for a 100 miler. Mentally I begin to question my decision to run my 100 mile race. I just want to run each day, throw in hard, long workouts without a care in the world. I love the building phase of racing, especially the hard work.

During the taper I feel out of shape, bored, lazy, and at least a little scared of the effort to come. Of course, that's just part of tapering and preparing mentally for a long endurance event. This feeling of not wanting to do the race after all is fairly new. I had it really bad for Tahoe 100 this past July, but did not feel it at all for the Cascade Crest 100 last year. I really considered not doing the TRT 100. I got all grumpy that I was doing some organized race and stressed out about the preparations. What if I don't achieve my goals? What if I fail? What if it hurts? I felt that I would rather have put all this effort into running the 165 mile TRT. These feeling have surfaced again for Plain 100. I know now that they are harmless feelings and will go away when the race begins. In the meantime, here is last weeks training journal.

I'm an adventurer first and foremost. I am an avid trail runner, student of yoga and crazy for slack lining. I race 100 mile ultra marathons. I like to see the world upside down and I hope my blog helps you see it that way too! Welcome! I love hearing from you.

I'm an adventurer first and foremost. I am an avid trail runner, student of yoga and crazy for slack lining. I race 100 mile ultra marathons. I like to see the world upside down and I hope my blog helps you see it that way too! Welcome! I love hearing from you.